Ionic Solutions for Carbon Capture – ION Engineering

ION Engineering has developed technology that could be used to economically remove CO2 and other contaminants from fossil fuel power plant emissions and raw natural gas.

According to ION Engineering, until now the state-of-the-art in current emissions control technology was the inefficient, aqueous (water-based) amine technology, but a breakthrough has seen the company become the first to successfully integrate ionic liquid solutions into carbon capture and emissions control technology by replacing the water based solution with ionic liquids – molten salts that do not evaporate. The company says that while recent developments in carbon capture technology have brought costs of carbon capture down to $50 to $100 a ton, its ionic liquid technology could cut the costs of capturing carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants to as low as $20 a ton. This reduction is cost is mainly due to the fact that around 80% of the total cost of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) comes from the capture of CO2 – the very area that the company’s system focuses on.

3 Responses to “Ionic Solutions for Carbon Capture – ION Engineering”

$ 20 a ton for a ton of carbon capture is pretty good.
Ofcourse one must keep in mind the cost of liquefaction, transportation and storage.

Arden Leonardo

March 30, 2010 at 12:20 pm

“Congratulations to ION, whose partnership with Colorado’s academic research institutions and private investors has created a commercial solution to one of the world’s biggest energy and environmental problems,” said Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. “ION’s technological advancements in clean, modern energy are helping to build Colorado’s New Energy Economy.”

ION Engineering founders Drs. Jason Bara and Dean Camper developed the ionic liquid-based solutions while postdoctoral fellows at CU-Boulder, and have become some of the world’s leading experts in the application of ionic liquids for CO2 capture (see their most-recent article published in the American Chemical Society’s peer-reviewed journal, http://pubs.acs.org/doi.abs/10.1021/ie8016237).

Dr. Chris Gabriel, currently a scientist at CU-Boulder, will also join ION to provide expertise in ionic liquid synthesis and chemical analysis. CEO Brown has an extensive background in science and business management, and university start-ups and early stage investing.

Mckenzee Blake

March 30, 2010 at 12:08 pm

ION Engineering CEO, Alfred Brown says, “Using ionic liquids, which don’t evaporate like water-based solutions and react with contaminating gases at a much higher rate, could lead to 30 percent to 40 percent reductions in those processing costs. “ ION Engineering also point out that contaminated gas reserves represent more than half of worldwide reserves so enhancing the “sweetening” process will vastly increase access to worldwide gas reserves by opening up “sour” gas fields now viewed as too expensive to develop.